Star Wars TV show in the works?

First the Star Wars original trilogy on DVD. Next year, Episode 3 the Revenge of the Sith. There's more. Apparently, a Star Wars TV show is in the works. Lucas won't be helming the thing, but a possible name which cropped up is "fan boy" Kevin Smith. As a Kevin Smith and Star Wars fan, I certainly hope this will come true. Seems like all Star Wars fans will still have something to look forward to even after the prequels are done.

P2P and the Copyright Law

Anyone who's interested in developing P2P applications, or just anyone who's interested in copyright and file sharing in general should take a look at this piece. The writer, Fred von Lohmann, is the same guy who won the Grokster case which ruled that P2P networks are legal. So, what he's saying is not just musings, but actual truths that was held up in the US courts.

The Pez MP3 Project

This is definitely a cool idea. Imagine a PEZ dispenser that doesn't give you candy but music! That will be really really sweet! Plus, you can swap the big heads with any time you want.

Worst Jobs in History

Tony Robinson, who played Baldric on the funny Black Adder series, is doing a series called "The Worst Jobs In History". This is interesting because he looks at some of the most disgusting jobs over the years, many of them found in the medieval times. In this piece, he highlights some of the jobs... and thankfully most of us don't have to do these jobs any more. Here's an excerpt for the job of Bath Attendant.

In the Georgian period (1714-1837) people were employed to help others in and out of the baths at Bath.

It was a very foul job because the posh ladies and gentlemen of the time did what we constantly tell our children they mustn't do – they p***ed in the water!

The baths were like minestrone soup by the end of the day, and you had these assistants with smiles on their faces constantly having to sweep the surface to get rid of all these little bits and pieces bobbing around all the time.

Oakley says wear your MP3 player

This one brings wearable tech to a next stylish level. Oakley is releasing the world's first digital music eyewear, which is essentially a MP3 player attached to the sunglasses. Knowing Oakley's stylish design, this gadget looks cool will make you look like a music fanatic from a sci-fi movie. Although it's pretty expensive at US$395 for the 128MB version and US$495 for the 256MB one, those with the cash will want to order it for Christmas! How about adding a HUD display to the glasses sound for the future model?

Star Wars DVD updates Xbox dashboard

Xbox-scene.com has reported that the recently released Star Wars trilogy DVD actually contains a feature that some would rather not have. The bonus disc of this set comes with the Star Wars: Battlefront game demo. But if you try to play it on a modded Xbox, the disc will automatically update your Xbox dashboard. Why is this important? Well, for those power users doing homebrew stuff on their box, this will affect those with older bioses (booting xboxdash.xbe), people using exploits or simply those who don't want their dash upgraded. Not good. Thankfully, there's still a way to get to the demo if you really want it. The site has more details of the work-around.

What's inside an iMac G5

Curious as to how Apple manage to squeeze everything into the slim form factor of the new iMac? Here's a series of pictures where a user strips open the machine so that we can see how the fit the parts inside this box. There goes his warranty but hey, it's the hacker spirit at work!

Emulator will let Xbox 2 play Xbox games

A company called Transitive Corp is claiming that they've come up with a piece of software, named QuickTransit, that allow Xbox games to be played on the Xbox 2 consoles. This is certainly good news for gamers considering that the have been news that the next-gen console will not be backward compatible. However it's too early to cheer, because it's not clear whether Transitive is actually working with Microsoft on Xenon emulation technology, and it seems like it is an unlikely scenario.

So until there is definite news, those who love their Xbox games should hope that their original Xbox consoles will last for a long, long time.

Mini lightsabers

Someone get me one of these! It's a lightsaber-like lighting device shaped like the weapon used by the Jedis. It's powered by AA-batteries and lights up just like the real lightsaber. Just imaging having a whole series of these things to decorate your house. It's the Force, baby!

Satire: Computer industry lied to entertainment industry

This blog entry is inspired by Cory Doctorow's DRM speech. It has the computer industry explaining to the entertainment players how the DRM won't work and P2P and other tech innovations are the future. It also expresses how the entertainment industry is treating their customers.

Look at us: every year, we churn out more computer games than your entire industry is worth. You know how we do it? We like our customers. We don't treat them like potential criminals, and try to make our products do less. We invent new things like online role-playing -games, where the money does not come from duplication of bits (which cannot be stopped, regardless of your DRM scheme) but from providing experiences that the people want.

Inspiring yet funny stuff. Hope the entertainment people gets it.

Google creating a browser?

What's next after getting your hands in search engines, shopping comparisions, and even email? Build your own browser of course! And this is what Google may be doing. According to this website, Google has registered the domain name of gbrowser.com, and a bug report on Mozilla's bug tracking system also offers some clues. Here's some more speculation on what a Google browser can have...

Google could use their JavaScript expertise (in the form of Gmail ubercoder Chris Wetherell) to build Mozilla applications. Built-in blogging tools. Built-in Gmail tools. Built-in search tools. A search pane that watches what you're browsing and suggests related pages and search queries or watches what you're blogging and suggests related pages, news items, or emails you've written.

Sounds good to me...

A blog of opinions

It's a well-known fact that blogs contains many people's opinions. In fact, you may just want to say that opinions are a dime a dozen in a world filled with blogs. Still, some of these opinions are carefully thought through and provide some interesting insights. This web site called Blogcritics.org is a collection of reviews taken from blogs and subject matter range from books to films to video games. Want to know what the lay person think of something? Maybe this is the place to start.

Complete Calvin & Hobbes

I love the antics of the mischevious boy Calvin and his imaginary tiger friend. Who doesn't? For those who want the definate collection of this comic strip, there are plans to release a three-hardcover slipcased complete collection of the popular comic strips in 2005. It's suppose to cost about US$150. Expensive but looks like it's gonna be real cool.

Star Wars episode 7-9

Mark Hamill in an interview has mentioned something about what George Lucas told him about the trilogy after the original Star Wars. Part of the interview is also available as an MP3 that can be downloaded from the site.

"Ludology" vs. "Narratology"

Gaming is on its way to become an academic discipline. It's not such a far fetch thing when you consider that there's a debate going on between the idea of ludology vs narratology. The former is about game play while the latter is all about the story or nattative in a game. Interesting read. Personally, I think both game play and story are just as important. Of course, you can have a great game with just either one of the two elements alone. So ultimately, it's not a case of one winning over the other but which is more important to different certain type of games.

A PC in a NES casing

For those old school gamers into nostalgia, this web site showcases someone who managed to fit a normal PC into a NES case. They even made a keyboard and mouse using the black and red colours of the NES system! It's really cool for those who're into DIY and modding.

Here's a LEGO brick phone

If you're a LEGO fan, you'd know that many people have removed the casing off ordinary objects and encased it in LEGO bricks. It's testament to the durability of these plastic blocks. I've heard of a Palm encased with LEGO, this time round, it's a phone. It's a bit old, judging by the 1985 date given on the site, but hey, it's LEGO!

Music ripping flow chart

The London News Review has produced a flowchart documenting the steps one may want to ask before ripping a CD or a music track. It starts with the question of whether a recording is at least 50 years old (based on the British copyright laws, i suppose) to asking yourself if the label owning the track you want to rip has a history of swindling its artists. Kudos to this web site for taking a humourous look at the music ripping issue and injecting certain moral and ethical questions into the thought process. It's stated that this flowchart is only version 1.0 so maybe we can expect to see improved versions of this which will include other questions?

UNIX on the Game Boy Advance

Running Unix on the GBA? Of course you can! I don't know if this proves that the Unix platform is versatile or that the GBA is such a flexible (I hesitate to use the term powerful) device. This web site documents a project called "gbaunix". It attempts to run an ancient version of the UNIX OS on the GBA using a simulator. I'm not too sure the value of this, but as an experiment, it sure is interesting.

Ludologica-critical books on games

An Italian press has published a series of books taking a critical and academic look at video games. The series takes an in-depth look at themes, techniques, context, and other aspect surrounding games. Unlike other books that tries to cover the gaming culture in broad strokes, this series focuses on individual games and dispense with the standards intro to the game which most gamers would already know. These wonderful guides into the study of games should be interesting reads.

Building your own PVR

Sick of waiting for TiVo to reach Singapore? Why not build your own? AnandTech has a 2-part feature on how you can build your own PVR. There may even be a Part 3 to this feature if there is a need. This setup uses MythTV and the Linux OS. So if you're game to try this out, it's not a bad way to make your own PVR than get one off the shelves.

Studying the body and brain of gamers

This interest in gamers that is reported on BBC is so weird. It is like gamers are a whole new species that needs to be studied and examined. Anyway, this is also a signal that gaming is becoming an important part of culture. As a gamer, I'm also interested to know what happens when I play games. If there are concrete scientific evidence with regards to the positive benefits to gaming, then gaming won't be seen as a juvenile hobby. But who cares? I love playing my games and no one is gonna stop me.

Downloaded music Top 40 chart

It seems like downloaded music is a phenomenon that has hit mainstream. BBC Radio has started to compile Top 40 charts of downloaded music. Although this chart only reflects legal downloads, perhaps if one can factor in illegal downloads as well, there could be a more accurate indication of the popularity of a song. Regardless, this is a commendable step forward for downloaded music.